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Towarda Critiqueof thePoliticalEconomyof theSign*
JeanBaudrillard
of Ideology1
I. TheMagicalThinking
Sub-StanceNo. 15 111
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112 JeanBaudrillard
EV UV
Sr Sd
-a strategic,functionaldivisionthroughwhichtheformreproducesitself.This means
that ideology is already entirelywithinthe relationof EV to UV, i.e., is already
entirelywithinthelogicof thecommodity,justas it is containedin therelationof the
Sr to theSd, i.e., withinthelogicinternalto thesign.
Marx showed that the objectivityof materialproductionresided not in its
materialitybut in itsform.This constitutesthe startingpoint of any criticaltheory.
Ideologycalls forthe same analyticalreduction:its objectivitydoes not residein its
"ideality",i.e., in a realiticmetaphysicsof thoughtcontentsbut in its form.
The "critique" of ideology(includingthe Marxistcritique)feedson a kindof
magicalthinkingwhichdoes not decipherideologyas formbut as content,as given
transcendental value-a sortof mana fastening on to a fewgreatrepresentationswhich
magicallyimpregnate floatingand mystified knownas "consciousnesses".
subjectivities
Just as "need" is given as the relation between an "object's usefulness"and a
"subject's demand", ideologyappears as the relationbetweenthe projectionof a
consciousnessand theidealityof an ... idea, or of a value.The samemagicalfootbridge
is strungbetween artificial,even metaphysical,concepts,transposedfrommaterial
goodsto valuesand collectiverepresentations.2
Indeed,ideologyis theentireprocessby whichsymbolicmaterialis reducedand
abstractedinto a form-butthisreductiveabstraction presentsitselfimmediatelyas an
(autonomous) value, as a (transcendental)content,as a (signified)representation of
consciousness.It is thissameprocesswhichletsan autonomousvalue,a transcendental
realitybe read into the commodity, throughthemisrecognition of itsformand of the
abstractionof social labor which it effects.Cultureis thusdefinedin bourgeois(or
Marxist,alas!) thoughtas a transcendance of contents,correlated withconsciousness
by "representation", circulatingbetweenthem as positivevalues,in much the same
way as the fetishizedcommodityappearsas an immediatereal value,correlatedwith
subjects through"need" and use value, and circulatingaccordingto the rulesof
exchangevalue.
The cunningof formis to continuallyveilitselfbehindtheevidenceof contents.
The cunningof thecode is to veilitselfbehindand to produceitselfin theevidenceof
value. It is in the "materiality" of the contentthatthe formconsumesits abstraction
and reproducesitselfas formof the content.This is its own magic: to play on the
productionof both contentsand the consciousnesseswhich receivethem (just as
productionproducesboth productsand theircorresponding "needs")-therebysetting
culturein a dual transcendance of values(of contents)and of consciousnesses,and in
the metaphysicsof an exchangebetweenthe two terms.And while the bourgeois
vulgateenshrinesit in thistranscendance to worshipit as culture,theMarxistvulgate
sets it in the same transcendance only to denounceit thereas ideology.But the two
vulgatesconvergein thesamemagicalthinking.3
Almost all contemporarythought impales itself on false problems and
interminable controversies arisingfromartificial
disjunctions:
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Towardsa Critiqueof thePoliticalEconomyof theSign* 113
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114 JeanBaudrillard
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Towardsa Critiqueof thePoliticalEconomyof theSign* 115
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116 JeanBaudrillard
symbolic, we are dealing with a process of resolution of the sign, resolution of the
equation upon whichit articulatesitselfand which,in communicativediscourse,is
neverresolvesd:integrated,opaque, neverelucidated,it establishestherethesame type
of social mysteryas does thatothermedium,the commodity,whichalso restson an
abstractequationof all values.7
The critiqueof politicaleconomy,conductedby Marx at the levelof exchange
value but whose total scope also impliesuse value,is verypreciselythisresolutionof
the commodityand of its implicitequation,a resolutionof the commodityas form
and as code of generalequivalence.It is thissame criticalresolutionwhichmustbe
extendedto thefieldof significationin a Critiqueof thepoliticaleconomyof thesign.
NOTES
*From: Pour une critique de l'conomie politique du signe. Gallimard, p. 172-185. Copyrightfor
the translation: Telos Press. Permissiongranted.
1. The notion of "pensfe magique" (magical thinking) to which the author alludes here was a
major instrumentof early French ethnology (Ed. note).
2. It should be noted the "alienation" is also one such magical concept, intended to fill in an
artificialdisjunction, this one between the "consciousness" of the subject and his own idealized
content (his "recovered totality").
3. Thus the "critical" denunciation of "artificial needs" and of the "manipulation of needs"
rejoins the unconditional exaltation of consumption in the same mystification.
4. An allusion here to Roger Garaudy, and in particular to the title of one of his works: D'un
rdalismesans rivages. (Ed. note)
5. Two types of analysis have attacked this parallel fetishismof the commodity and of the sign:
the critique of political economy, or theory of rmaterialproduction, inaugurated by Marx, and
critical semiology, or theory of textual production, carried out more recently by the Tel Quel
group.
6. Taken here in the classical semio-linguisticsense, of the symbol as analogical variant of the sign.
On the contrary, we shall always use the symbol (the symbolic, the symbolic exchange) in
opposition and as a radical alternativeto the concept of sign and signification.
7. This resolution of the sign entails the abolition of the Sr and Sd as such, but not the abolition,
toward some mystical nothingness,of the operation of meaning and its material. The symbolic
operatioo of meaning also operates on phonic, visual, gestural (and social) matter, but in
accordance with a completely differentkind of logic.
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